Giving the People a ‘Fighting Chance’: The Discourse
and Ideology of Senator Elizabeth Warren

Molly Mayhead, Western Oregon University,
US

Giving the People a ‘Fighting Chance’: The Discourse and Ideology of Senator Elizabeth WarrenFramed within the perspectives of feminist standpoint theory and Walter Fisher’s narrative paradigm, this article offers an analysis of Warren’s autobiography and select public statements. It evaluates the relationship between her personal lived experiences and the public political causes she advocates. The work will demonstrate the importance of autobiographies in explaining an individual’s ideology as well as providing justification for political action. Elizabeth Warren’s autobiography not only underscores an understanding of the link between the personal and political, but it also serves as a clarion call to future generations of women to lead.Mayhead M.pdfAdobe Acrobat document [409.7 KB]

Contextual Engineering To Address
Preservation Of Rural Societies

Ann-Perry Witmer, University Of Illinois At
Urbana-Champaign, US

Contextual Engineering To Address Preservation Of Rural SocietiesLack of infrastructure to meet basic life needs has been identified as a significant driver for rural youth to leave their indigenous identities and knowledge so that they may seek opportunity in cities, and global trends toward urban migration signal a significant threat to preservation of placebased values, beliefs and skills. Large development agencies attempt to address basic needs such as sanitary drinking water, improved sanitation, and safe transportation modes, but economic optimization frequently drives them to focus on serving population centers, leaving rural communities further and further behind. Filling the infrastructure gap are less resourced, sometimes inadequately trained, and often special-interest organizations seeking to promote agendas or follow practices that may conWitmer.pdfAdobe Acrobat document [231.4 KB]

What is Catholic Social Innovation?In 2017, a team at Boston College School of Social Work’s Center for Social Innovation conducted research for Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities (FADICA) that sought to create a working definition of Catholic social innovation, catalogue it in action in response to the global refugee and migrant crisis, and complete write-ups on several dozen Catholic-led and Catholic sister-led Catholic social innovations. FADICA released a public report based on the research in early 2018. This paper describes that research and offers a working definition of Catholic social innovation. The Catholic social innovation research examined socially innovative Catholic-led, and secular programmatic responses to the refugee and migrant crisis in 35 countries with above average flows of mDearing.pdfAdobe Acrobat document [422.9 KB]

Anti-Semitism—The Unintended
Consequence of the Development of Augustine’s Thinking About Human Free Will

Douglas Furth, Yale Divinity School,
US

Anti-Semitism—The Unintended Consequence of the Development of Augustine’s Thinking About Human Free WillThe first section of the paper provides an overview of the leading scholarship on the subject of Augustine and the Jews, focusing on the work of Jeremy Cohen and Paula Fredriksen. The second section of the paper discusses the evolution of Augustine’s thinking about the existence of human free will. Over the ten years from 386 to 396, Augustine changed from believing that God must have granted human beings free will because he cannot justly reward or punish individuals who lack free will to believing that the justice of God is “inscrutable” and that human beings lack free will. The third section of the paper discusses the development of an Augustine “doctrine of Jewish witness” as it is referred to by scholars. It held that Jews who observe the Law do so because they are predestFurth.pdfAdobe Acrobat document [520.6 KB]

Virtual Master’s Training:
Implications for Teaching

Juan Llanes and Paula
Novillo, University of Barcelona, Spain

Virtual Master’s Training: Implications for TeachingIn recent years the demand for online postgraduate courses has grown significantly (MECD 2016; OCDE 2017)—as, concomitantly, has academic interest in analysing distance education teaching practices in order to optimise online students’ learning. In this study we address this subject with a twofold objective: to identify the benefits and drawbacks of these virtual learning environments, and to outline prospective ways to improve the teaching and learning process in said environments. This study has been carried out in UNIBA (Centro Universitario Internacional de Barcelona), an affiliate institution of the Universidad de Barcelona (Spain) which offers five master’s degrees and an undergraduate course. These programmes cover different fields of knowledge and have up to 1400 students froLlanes and Novillo.pdfAdobe Acrobat document [763.6 KB]

The Changing Nature of University
Governance and Accountability Management: An Exploration of the Lived Experiences and Perceptions of Australian Academics

The Changing Nature of University Governance and Accountability Management: An Exploration of the Lived Experiences and Perceptions of Australian AcademicsGlobally, universities are facing complex issues which often leads to transformational change. Among the changes, university governance and accountability management have been noted as areas of reform. The main drivers are globalisation, burgeoning knowledge-based economies, rapidity of new technologies adoption, and global competitiveness. The impact of these drivers and subsequent reform is ultimately reflected in the changing nature of academic work being undertaken by academic staff. Academic staff are inclined to negatively reflect on their experience of the changing nature of their academic work. This paper reports on a study conducted in Australia that explores the lived experiences of sixteen academics working in a range of public universities and experiencing transformational chanDeSilva.pdfAdobe Acrobat document [344.9 KB]